An Open Watercourse for Divine Love

 

Eastern North Dakota Synod Assembly

Opening Worship on August 14, 2020

John 4:5-42

 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

“Before” and “After” pictures are standard tools employed by advertisers—especially those who peddle weight-loss remedies, wrinkle-removers, and exercise equipment.    Google the phrase “before-and-after pictures” and about 4 billion “hits” will pop up—that’s 4 billion with a “B!”

I share this because, as I’ve been pondering this story from John 4, I’ve been wondering: “What might this Samaritan woman’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures have looked like?”

I imagine a “before” picture that depicts a woman with a downcast expression, eyes averted, trying to make herself as small and easy-to-ignore as possible.  

And the “after” picture?   I see this same woman, but now with bright shining eyes, gazing outward, her arms opened wide as if to embrace the whole world!

What a transformation—between these “before” and “after” pictures of this unnamed Samaritan woman…not because she had a facelift or lost 50 pounds…

…but because of a chance encounter she had with a total stranger beside Jacob’s Well, her village’s ancient water-source.

Here she was, going about her daily routine, lugging her water-bucket to the well at high noon—the best time of the day to avoid all the other townswomen with their buckets…

So imagine her dismay when, approaching the well, she sees that an unexpected Stranger was already there!

Tempted to turn on her heels and return home, the woman--for some mysterious reason--still felt drawn to her destination and that Stranger whom she noticed was both a man and a Jew.

Hopefully he’d pretend she wasn’t there…but then it happened.  The man spoke to her:  “Give me a drink…”

The Stranger at the well thus, in effect, said to her:“I see you!”

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” the woman responds, saying in effect to the Stranger:  “I see you!”

This brief opening exchange is the last bit of chit-chat we hear in this narrative…

…because, starting with the Stranger’s simple request, a whole wide-ranging conversation began...

…a conversation that quickly delved deeper and deeper into vital business—deep realities--that would soon mark this day as a decisive turning point for this woman, for all her neighbors and eventually for millions more, including now you and me.

First the woman learns that, though lacking his own bucket, this Stranger has water, Living Water, water that quenches all thirst forever, water that “gushes up to eternal life”…

Second, the woman discovers that even though they’ve never met before, thse Stranger knows her—reads her like a book—and is aware of everything about her—including all the stuff she tried to keep in the shadows—all the complicated, awkward, gossip-engendering parts of her story that she normally kept to herself! 

But there’s more!  This Stranger who already knows her through and through, doesn’t use his knowledge of her to belittle her….but instead, he responds to her searching faith questions…thus refreshing her parched thirsty soul.

Which brings us to the woman’s third discovery.  She realizes that this Stranger wants, not simply to satisfy her curiosity about holy things, but to expand her entire imagination about God…to point her to this God who isn’t tied down to any geographic location….but is wild and free and utterly present wherever seekers like her worship God, in spirit and in truth.

Throughout this narrative, the New Testament’s longest recorded conversation between Jesus and another human being--through it all they keep delving deeper and deeper until it dawns on the woman that this Stranger is a prophet, a messenger who speaks the truth not just about herself but about God…and doesn’t merely speak this truth but embodies it in his very being.   

Connecting all the dots, the woman suddenly realizes that this Stranger is the One she and everyone else have been waiting for—God’s anointed One, the Messiah…

….and when that dawns on her, she grasps—in a second!—that such longed-for, liberating truth simply has to be shared with others.

So leaving her empty bucket at the well--she runs full-tilt back to her village, breathlessly stammering the Best Good News she had ever heard:  “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

And then—miracle of miracles--this wall-flower woman boldly, jubilantly, arrestingly evangelized her whole town.  

This poor, misunderstood, ostracized woman—she, of all people!--opened the door for her neighbors themselves to meet the Stranger, to hear his Good News, and to become sharers of this Good News:  “It is no longer because of what [this woman] said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world!”

My beloved friends in Christ, this amazing story is not simply a “once upon a time” tale.

It is, rather, the Story of our lives, a Story meant to be heard and told and shared with others for as long as this old world keeps turning.

Even now, during this fearful pandemic--that seems to make a mockery of our assembly theme:   Living Well…

Even now as we recognize and strive to address other threats in our world:  threats like economic depression, racial strife, and global climate change….

Even now, when the possibility of “Living Well” seems so remote…we  gather to reclaim the greatest truth of all:  that there is One who knows us better than we know ourselves….and despite our sin, does not hesitate to declare to each of us and to all our neighbors across the world: 

·      “I see you”

·      And “I love you with an everlasting, undefeatable love that has gone to the Cross and the Grave for you,”

·      And I choose to have my Living Water--My Holy Spirit—flow TO you and flow THROUGH you, all of you, now and forever!

Here’s how a great American Lutheran church leader once put it:

"All that we Christians are called upon to do, all we can do, is to be an open watercourse for…divine love.  We do not create [such love]…and we must not blockade it…[but] we are simply to reflect it, back to [God] and out to [God’s] world.  Our calling is to give it free flow…[and our prayer must always be:] Lord, keep the conduit that leads through me from being clogged!"[1]

That—all of that—is what’s happening here in John chapter 4.  If Luke’s gospel shows us Jesus telling the parable of a Good Samaritan man, John’s gospel shows us Jesus creating the miracle of this Good Samaritan woman!

As we begin this historic, all-digital synod assembly, we do so, trusting that our Lord’s Living Water is still flowing, to us and through us here in our Eastern ND Synod:  freeing us to declare that God intends for us and all people to live well, as we gather around Christ the Living Well who is the Savior of the world!

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

---

[1] Franklin Clark Fry, “The Source and the Flow,” a 1967 stewardship article.   Quoted in For All the Saints: A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Volume II, p. 354f (American Lutheran Publicity Bureau 1996)

More Than We Can Ask or Imagine

Installation of Deacon Tara Lee Ulrich

Tri-County Ministry, Red Willow Bible Camp, Binford, ND

Pentecost 9/August 2, 2020

Matthew 14:13-21

 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

This beloved story of the feeding of the 5,000 stands out in the Bible because it’s the only miracle of Jesus that appears in all four gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

That’s a tipoff that something noteworthy is going on.  This passage almost yells at us:  “Hey, you—pay attention!   Something big is happening here!

And what is happening here, anyway?

Some pretty weird arithmetic, I’d say…because on the surface of it, this text seems to point to a math formula that reads: 5 + 2 = 5,000

FIVE loaves of bread plus TWO fish equals enough food to feed more than 5,000 persons!!

Say what?

5 + 2 = FIVE THOUSAND???   In what universe does that add up?  

None that I can think of…

….and yet, what if there’s something’s missing from this math formula?    What if it really should be:  5 + 2 + 1 = 5,000?

Five loaves, plus two fish, plus one Jesus = dinner for 5,000 men “besides women and children” as Matthew reminds us!

Isn’t that amazing?  And yet, as astounding as this story is, there’s something  familiar about it….almost like an “echo in the room”….a reverberation of all those parables of “smallness” we’ve been hearing this summer….as we’ve taken a long slow walk through the 13^th chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel.

Seems as though we’ve been reminded—again and again and again—about how it is that in God’s strange “economy” small things are forever producing huge outcomes.

So…God takes a solitary sower, a minuscule mustard seed, a puny pinch of yeast, and a measly little shore lunch…God takes all these small realities and produces amazing results from each of them.

For, you see, small is beautiful in God’s way of looking at things.  

The most inconsequential of events and things and persons…in the hands of that One whose name is Jesus…will make all the difference in the world.

 But what we dare not miss here is that this story of the feeding of the 5,000+ is not simply a tale about something that happened “once-upon-a-time”….

…rather, it’s an ever-repeating pattern for the life that is ours “under the glorious and gentle rule of [God’s] Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.”   (Prayer of the Day for Christ the King, LBW, p. 30)

There’s a pattern or better, there’s a paradigm here for how your seven congregations have served and continue to serve God’s mission through the Tri-County Ministry.

First, some unforeseen need emerges—often when our attention is focused elsewhere.

Here in this passage, Jesus is attempting to find some solitude…in order to pray and to mourn the death of his friend and cousin, John the Baptist.

But crowds of curious, needy folks find Jesus--eager to hear his teaching and receive his healing.

And this brings us to the second part of the paradigm for ministry that emerges from this story:  when Jesus sees the crowds he has compassion for them.   

In the original Greek version of this story, the word that’s translated “compassion” is splagnisthe—which is derived from the Greek word for intestines or “guts.”   

In other words:   Jesus hurts in his guts for the pain and need of his people.

But even when we, who trust in Jesus, encounter a person or problem that calls forth our own hurt-in-the-guts compassion….we often doubt our capacity to make a difference.

This brings us to the third part of the paradigm for ministry we see in our text.   It takes all day for Jesus to care for the needy crowds, and when the sun starts sinking in the sky, his “handlers” (the disciples!) urge Jesus to call it a day and send the crowds off to the local towns to buy food for themselves.

The disciples assume, you see, that Jesus has done all he can for the crowds….but Jesus turns the tables on them by telling them:   “You give them something to eat!”

But the disciples (having already inventoried their meager food supply) respond with a classic line:   “we have nothing here but…..we have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”

This third part of our paradigm for ministry is an expression of scarcity in the face of overwhelming need.

And you and I know all about that.  Even though America is known for its great bounty and seemingly endless possibilities, we often assume scarcity, and we find it so easy to utter our own “we have nothing but ____” response.

Jesus will not allow such pinched, small-minded thinking, though.   He takes matters into his own hands—literally!—picking up the loaves and fishes, offering thanks for them, and boldly giving them to his disciples so that they, in turn, can distribute the food they have to the famished crowds.

And we know what happened next.  It’s the fourth part of our paradigm for ministry:   God’s abundance overwhelming our sense of scarcity.

Lo and behold that measly shore lunch is multiplied as it’s divided among the crowds….so much so that when everyone has eaten their fill, those “nothing but” disciples are able to gather up twelve baskets—twelve baskets of leftovers!

Such astounding abundance!    But there’s even more here than meets the eye.    Because the gospel writer Matthew helpfully concludes this story by observing:   “And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

How enormous is the size of God’s abundance in this miracle story?   Well, let me put it this way:  we should probably stop calling this the “feeding of the 5,000” and start calling it: the “feeding of the 20,000” (to include all those uncounted women and children!)  

Isn’t it the case—as we think back over our own individual lives not to mention the stories of our congregations—isn’t it the case that the surprising abundance of God is always overwhelming the scarcity thinking we’re so accustomed to?

Deacon Tara, as we finally get you installed this morning (!), I want to commend to you….for your own ministry of Word and Service….the paradigm for ministry that unfolds in this miracle of the feeding of the 20,000.

First, be attuned to every fresh awareness of need or longing or hope that comes from members of this parish or the neighbors who live among us. 

You’ve been serving the church long enough to realize that ministry often happens in the midst of interruptions—some would even say that ministry is best called-forth by the interruptions that pop up in the midst of our well-laid plans.

Second, pay attention when your stomach churns or your heart aches—either of which could open the door to ministry to or with a member of your flock.   Again, because I know of your gifts for discernment and empathy, you don’t really need me to remind you of this.   Nevertheless, C.S. Lewis did get it right when he said that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains.”

Third, remember how easy it is to underestimate the resources at your disposal.    “Scarcity thinking” is so tempting, because it seems to be inspired by reason and common sense…even though it can prevent us from pondering what sorts of big plans God is already hatching!

Fourth, count on being regularly awestruck by God’s abundance.   The biblical lodestar that feeds my hope is found in Ephesians 3:20—“By the power at work within us [God] is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.”

So, in closing, thank you for inviting me to be with you today….and God bless you all—in partnership with Pastor Sherri and Deacon Tara--as you continue to serve this historic, innovative, cooperative ministry here in rural North Dakota. In the name of Jesus.   Amen.